Chelsea put recent poor results behind them to move into third place in the Premier League table with a convincing 4-0 thrashing of Stoke, ending in the process the last unbeaten home record in all four divisions.

Two own goals by Jon Walters undeniably made the visitors' life easier, especially as he missed a second-half penalty for Stoke, though Chelsea were so much in control Rafa Benítez found himself countering suggestions that his players are more relaxed away from Stamford Bridge, where this year they have lost to QPR and Swansea.

"You get more space away from home," the Chelsea manager said. "That was all that happened today, especially when we went in front. When you are away the home side always try to get on top of you, and that creates space in which your quality players can operate. When we can find space the movement of our players can kill opponents, but when Swansea came to us they defended well and restricted the amount of room we had. Even then we created a lot of chances."

John Terry began his comeback after two months out due to a knee injury with a late appearance as substitute, though Gary Cahill missed the game through attending the birth of his child, meaning David Luiz moved back to centre-half. "We prepared for this game with Gary in the centre of defence, then we lost him at the last minute," Benítez said. "You know you are going to get a difficult game here and we did, especially in the first half, but my players showed great quality and great character."

It was a day to forget for Walters, responsible for Chelsea's first two goals after getting back to try to help his defence and guilty of smashing a penalty against Petr Cech's bar late in the game, though as Benítez pointed out the goals were not exactly gifts. On both occasions Chelsea pressured him into making a mistake. "We had a man behind him each time," Benítez said. "He might have been unlucky, but you could also say we might have scored if he hadn't got in the way."

Tony Pulis had no complaints about the result, even though he remonstrated with the referee as the team left the pitch at half-time, just after Chelsea had taken the lead. "I was disappointed with one or two things that went on, let's just leave it at that," the Stoke manager said.

Pulis was also disappointed with the penalty Chelsea were awarded – "I thought it was soft, Juan Mata's legs just collapsed underneath him" – but admitted Chelsea had the edge in quality. "The second goal killed us, and the last was a wonder strike from Hazard," he said. "Losing by four is hard to take, but it just didn't go for us. It was Chelsea's day."